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THE PILLARS
In this section:
Training Improves Healthcare
Online Donation Portal for Iraq Allows Broader
Participation
U.S. Helps Energy Reform in Poor Countries
10,000 Professionals Volunteer Abroad
GLOBAL HEALTH
Training Improves Healthcare
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A nurse stocks up a medicine cabinet in a Nicaraguan
health clinic. A USAID-funded project has provided management
training and improved monitoring of the health system.
Carmen Urdaneta, Management Sciences for Health |
MANAGUA, Nicaragua—Reina Margarita Maltez has
often visited the clinic in the rural town of Tisma, 25 miles
southeast of this capital. Having five children has seen to
that.
“Sometimes the staff would not even raise their heads
to greet me, and that made me feel bad. It was terrible,”
she said. “When your child is sick, you are already anxious,
and if the staff does not even care, it makes you even more
anxious.”
But in recent years, Maltez found the attitude of clinic
health workers had changed after a series of projects funded
by USAID to improve health services.
The projects include management training, leadership courses,
monitoring the health system, and institutionalizing successful
efforts. As a result, the medical staff is more attentive
and courteous to patients.
“Traditional leadership development programs…show
you what the characteristics of a good leader are,” said
Violeta Barreto, director of human resources at the Ministry
of Health, which worked with USAID contractor Management Sciences
for Health (MSH).
“The program is made for public-sector organizations
and NGOs, and recognizes the importance of leaders who are
managers, who all have important objectives, and who must
prioritize those objectives in light of scarce resources,”
she said.
Some 80 percent of Nicaraguans—who live in the second
poorest country in the Western hemisphere—depend on public
clinics.
In Boaco, a rural area north of Managua, health directors
recently met—on a day when a power outage left them in
the dark—to discuss monthly health statistics and identify
gaps in service delivery.
Just a two-minute walk from the regional office where health
services are budgeted and managed, a local health post treats
about 300 patients per day. Its health providers depend on
administrators like Dr. Armando Incer, the regional medical
director, who helps ensure they have the tools to offer quality
service, monitor that service, and treat patients well.
“We knew that how we treat patients is important. However,
many of our staff did not keep this in mind,” Dr. Incer
said. “They did not know our mission or our vision for
health services in the region.”
The leadership program began in July 2001 in the poorest
of Nicaragua’s 17 regions. After an assessment identified
problems in the workplace climate, MSH and the Ministry of
Health produced leadership development training modules directed
at the biggest deficiencies.
“Before, we had no common vision. Our staff had attitude
problems…and did not see how their actions negatively
impacted services,” said Rosa Martines, municipal health
leader for the Masaya region, which was one of the original
project sites. “As a team, we’ve improved our communication.
The information flows, and no longer stays at one level or
with one person or program.”
After training two groups at the municipal level, the program
was offered nationally.
In mid-2003, the program began working with senior managers
at the central level of the Ministry of Health, focusing on
regulatory and policy challenges. Leadership was strengthened,
and led to the development of a national health plan.
Now the ministry’s management and operational systems
are also being reengineered and improved.
Carmen Urdaneta of Management Sciences for Health contributed
to this article. After years of working in Latin America,
Urdaneta died in a plane crash in Afghanistan earlier this
year, while working on USAID-funded projects in Kabul.
GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT ALLIANCE
Online Donation Portal for Iraq Allows Broader Participation
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A new website permits citizens, communities, and corporations
to financially support the Agency’s massive reconstruction
efforts in Iraq.
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BAGHDAD, Iraq—USAID is working through a new
web site, IraqPartnership.org, to allow American citizens,
communities, corporations, and others to participate in the
Agency’s massive reconstruction efforts here.
IraqPartnership.org was created by GlobalGiving, an organization
that allows donors to give directly to international projects.
In 2003, the Global Development Alliance (GDA) invested
$1.5 million in GlobalGiving, which has generated more than
$2 million to support over 1,000 projects through individual
and institutional giving.
“IraqPartnership.org facilitates connections between
private American donors and effective development projects
in Iraq,” said Mari Kuraishi, president of the GlobalGiving
Foundation.
Prospective donors who have visited the organization’s
general website —globalgiving.com—range from concerned
individuals to a Brownie Scout troop to an employee of a Fortune
500 corporation whose contribution is matched by her employer.
They choose projects based on geographic or sector interests,
and then contribute directly to the projects they select.
Project offerings on IraqPartnership.org come from USAID/Iraq’s
current mission portfolio.
Initial opportunities include the option to purchase desks
for classrooms, water pumps for farm cooperatives, and computers
for a business center. Additional projects will be added,
Kuraishi said.
GlobalGiving was created in 2001 when Kuraishi and co-founder
Dennis Whittle left the World Bank to follow through on an
idea that originated from the Development Marketplace, a competition
they designed while at the Bank to foster innovation in development
practice.
GlobalGiving’s approach uses the internet as a marketplace—an
“eBay” for development—to provide an efficient,
open, and thriving channel for local projects to raise funds.
Today, 63 countries are represented on globalgiving.com.
Donations can be as little as $10.
Previously, the USAID-GlobalGiving partnership supported
employee- and customer-giving programs for Gap Inc. and The
North Face, leveraging resources through a two-to-one and
three-to-one corporate match, respectively.
The IraqPartnership.org website expands on this effort on
a much grander scale by connecting USAID’s country rebuilding
efforts with what Administrator Andrew S. Natsios terms “the
humanitarian instincts of the American people.”
“USAID’s alliance with GlobalGiving increases
the resources available to the Iraq mission and brings the
American taxpayer closer to the practice of international
development,” said Dan Runde, acting director of the
GDA Secretariat. “It is a fantastic development model
whose success in Iraq can serve as an example for other country
missions.”
ECONOMIC GROWTH, AGRICULTURE, AND TRADE
U.S. Helps Energy Reform in Poor Countries
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U.S. regulators on a visit to the Jamaica Public Service’s
Hunts Bay 124-megawatt power plant in Kingston. Jamaica’s
Office of Utility Regulation is a participant in the
U.S. Energy Association’s Energy Partnership Program,
a USAID-funded initiative working on energy reform in
developing countries.
U.S. Energy Association |
Until recently, when a power outage occurred in Jamaica,
people stayed in the dark. But now they can call the Office
of Utility Regulation (OUR) and find out why power is out
and when it might be back up.
The service was instituted after OUR participated in a project
through the U.S. Energy Association’s (USEA) Energy Partnership
Program, a USAID-funded initiative working on energy reform
in developing countries.
Since 1991, USEA, a nonprofit association of 160 private
and public energy-related corporations and organizations,
has matched American utilities and regulatory agencies with
counterparts in the developing world.
U.S. aid finances travel for executives from U.S. utilities
and regulatory agencies to countries reforming their energy
sectors. It also funds travel for their counterparts to come
to the United States.
“When you are talking regulator to regulator, you say:
‘Here’s the theory, here’s the reality. You
have political constraints and we do, too.’ You want
to give them as realistic a view [as possible], including
imperfections. That’s the virtue,” said James Connelly,
commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications
and Energy, who worked with his counterpart in Egypt.
USEA has organized more than 80 volunteer partnerships in
USAID-assisted countries to accelerate economic and social
development. The program has channeled more than $57 million
of in-kind contributions from U.S. utilities to those in developing
countries.
“These partnerships have accelerated energy sector
reform, increased the supply and reliability of electric power,
improved services to consumers, and made regulatory oversight
more transparent,” said Juan Belt, director of the Infrastructure
and Engineering Office of the Bureau for Economic Growth,
Agriculture, and Trade.
During the Jamaica exchange, for instance, OUR learned not
only about being more accountable to its customers, but also
about how upgrading technology can improve efficiency.
Based on recommendations made by the Missouri Public Service
Commission and the Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission,
Jamaica’s regulator added personnel to its technology
and engineering department.
A March 2003 assessment of USEA’s program by Energy
Resources International (ERI) found that the Energy Partnership
Program is “having positive development impacts on partners’
organizations and their countries.” ERI found that the
partnerships are giving more people in developing countries
“better access to energy services and enabling energy
resources to be produced more efficiently and delivered more
safely and reliably to customers.”
Some 80 percent of participating utilities said they improved
their knowledge and skills through their partnership with
USEA. Another 85 percent reported that they will continue
to benefit from their partnership after they end.
Emmanuel Anumaka, senior manager for transmission planning
at Nigeria’s National Electric Power Authority (NEPA),
said this organization “has put in place a new grid metering
system and procedures for efficient and effective tracking
of the consumption of electricity and enhancing accountability.
Revenue collection has soared from 40–50 percent to about
70 percent” since NEPA had an exchange with USEA.
DEMOCRACY, CONFLICT, AND HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE
10,000 Professionals Volunteer Abroad
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Workers build a water system for a Nigerian hospital
with the help of a VfP volunteer.
Chris Strock |
After the Indian Ocean tsunami, Volunteers for Prosperity
(VfP) worked alongside USA Freedom Corps to respond to hundreds
of people throughout the United States who offered to assist
in relief efforts.
It is a measure of the growing clout of VfP, a two-year-old
initiative that helps Americans volunteer in developing countries,
said Jack Hawkins, director of the Office of VfP in the Bureau
for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance. He called
the initiative “a promising new service opportunity for
America’s compassionate professionals.”
VfP was established by President Bush through executive
order in September 2003. It works with leading U.S. nonprofits
and companies to deploy American professionals—such as
doctors, nurses, and engineers—in volunteer opportunities
supporting the United States’ global health and prosperity
agendas.
Organizations not previously involved in official foreign
assistance—ranging from smaller faith-based and community
groups to trade associations and corporations—have joined
VfP, which now counts more than 200 U.S. nonprofits and companies
among its partners.
USAID is the inter-agency coordinator for the initiative,
which is also supported by the departments of State, Commerce,
and Health and Human Services.
“A senior U.S. business person can spend a two-week
vacation helping entrepreneurs in Senegal develop a business
plan; or an American nurse can take a six-month leave of absence
from her job to work with peers in Asia treating AIDS patients,”
Hawkins said. “In both cases, VfP can help connect volunteers
with organizations that are doing good work in a variety of
sectors and in a variety of places overseas.”
At a recent international conference on volunteerism, Hawkins
moderated a panel that included senior officials from the
Peace Corps, the U.N. Volunteers, and VfP volunteer Chris
Strock, a 28-year-old civil engineer from Virginia who helped
build a water system for a Nigerian hospital.
“Volunteering always starts with the noble concept
of helping someone in need and, ironically, the volunteer
may be the one helped out the most,” said Strock. “I
hope I will continue to grow as a person from my experiences.”
The partner organizations, Hawkins said, “represent
a pool of talented American professionals now exceeding 50,000.”
It is expected that over 10,000 such volunteers will be
deployed this year. Partner organizations who use these volunteers
also receive special consideration in applications for grants
associated with the federally supported initiatives relating
to VfP.
The International Roundtable featured presentations from
leading national and international experts on volunteerism
and service. The conference attendees represented 50 international
NGOs and over 15 countries, including the United Kingdom,
Nigeria, Bolivia, Nepal, and Israel.
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